POMONA, an old Italian goddess of fruit and gardens. Ovid (Met. xiv. 623) tells the story of her courtship by the silvan deities and how Vertumnus, god of the turning year, wooed and won her. Corresponding to Pomona there seems to have been a male Italian deity, called Pomunus, who was perhaps identical with Vertumnus. Although chiefly worshipped in the country, Pomona had a special priest at Rome, the flamen Pomonalis, and a sacred grove near Ostia, called the Pomonal. She was represented as a beautiful maiden, with fruits in her bosom and a pruning-knife in her hand.